ePortfolios

The purpose of an ePortfolio is to enable students to manage their digital identity. Throughout your time as a student you will amass many digital assets whether those are papers, blog posts, multimedia projects, or other means of digital scholarship. Your ePortfolio can act as both a digital archive to preserve your work and a web portfolio to share with your current professors and with potential graduate schools or employers. 

Wordpress is a free, open-source content management system that can be used to make websites and blogs. You will be using Wordpress.com to create an ePortfolio of your work throughout college. Get started by reading the directions at Learn Wordpress. 

Wordpress allows you to create a blog, a static website, or both. The advantages of using Wordpress for your ePortfolio are the ability to:

• Organize your posts chronologically
• Tag your posts
• Create a personal profile
• Create discreet content areas with varying privacy restrictions
• Allow readers to subscribe to your content via RSS feeds
• Post and link to different types of media including videos, images, sound recordings, presentations, text files, and more

What you include in your ePortfolio is dependent upon what you want to preserve and share. Your first step should be to map out the general navigation of your site by determining content areas. Some potential areas and resources to include could be:

ABOUT YOU

• Biography
• Your interests
• Your goals
• Comments and recommendations from your peers and teachers
• Links to other social media
• Blog

SHOWCASE

• Awards
• Certifications
• Performances and presentations
• Professional development plans
• Work-related assessments

EDUCATION

• Class notes
• Homework
• Assignments
• Projects
• Creative writing
• Reflections
• Feedback

PROFESSIONAL

• Educational history
• Course listing
• Published or presented papers
• Work and/or volunteer experience
• Your resume or curriculum vitae

Loosely adapted from "Digital Portfolios: Guidelines for beginners." Ministry of Education, Wellington, New Zealans (2011). 

Since this is a student work in progress, you may not want to make your site freely available for anyone and everyone to see. In that case, follow these directions to make your entire site private except to invited users. You can also make individual pages on your site private by following these directions.